by Graubart » Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:59 pm
Hi all,
what is already possible today is to use Boat Beacon on Adnroid or iPhone. This allows you to focus an area on a world map and it displays AIS-based the boats around the center of this area. This information can then also be streamed to another machine in your local network, which could e.g. house OpenCPN map plotter. There you can also import the AIS stream of your own boat, as exported from VS:NG. This works in real-time, so you get the boats around you at least on your map plotter (I use a second screen for this). This is especially satisfying when using nautically accurate sceneries in VS:NG, as e.g. the great works of Thorben Beimel (Baltic Sea, Norwegian coast).
In theory, the Boat Beacon output would also be a potential input stream for VS:NG, to be combined with a set of generic low-poly AI-boats for the purpose of displaying moving real-time traffic within the sim. However, so far this feature is not implemented.
Also, Boat Beacon does not offer this service for free, it costs around 20 $/year, if I am right. If you want to use high resolution, scalable nautical vector maps within OpenCPN, you also need to purchase them. It is however possible to purchase them without the update services (which means that they are not suitable for real navigation) for a fraction of the price of a real nautical chart. Basic OpenSeaMap charts are available for free.
The combination of Boat Beacon, OpenCPN and VS:NG proves a very powerful combination which allows you to navigate around other traffic, just without seing it within the sim. For this last step, Ilan would need to develop a feature to receive AIS streams and a series of AI-boats needed to be developed. The area limitation of boat beacon would also ensure that the sim (or your PC) do not collapse from loading and displaying 1000s of vessel positions every minute.
Hi all,
what is already possible today is to use Boat Beacon on Adnroid or iPhone. This allows you to focus an area on a world map and it displays AIS-based the boats around the center of this area. This information can then also be streamed to another machine in your local network, which could e.g. house OpenCPN map plotter. There you can also import the AIS stream of your own boat, as exported from VS:NG. This works in real-time, so you get the boats around you at least on your map plotter (I use a second screen for this). This is especially satisfying when using nautically accurate sceneries in VS:NG, as e.g. the great works of Thorben Beimel (Baltic Sea, Norwegian coast).
In theory, the Boat Beacon output would also be a potential input stream for VS:NG, to be combined with a set of generic low-poly AI-boats for the purpose of displaying moving real-time traffic within the sim. However, so far this feature is not implemented.
Also, Boat Beacon does not offer this service for free, it costs around 20 $/year, if I am right. If you want to use high resolution, scalable nautical vector maps within OpenCPN, you also need to purchase them. It is however possible to purchase them without the update services (which means that they are [b]not suitable for real navigation[/b]) for a fraction of the price of a real nautical chart. Basic OpenSeaMap charts are available for free.
The combination of Boat Beacon, OpenCPN and VS:NG proves a very powerful combination which allows you to navigate around other traffic, just without seing it within the sim. For this last step, Ilan would need to develop a feature to receive AIS streams and a series of AI-boats needed to be developed. The area limitation of boat beacon would also ensure that the sim (or your PC) do not collapse from loading and displaying 1000s of vessel positions every minute.